Snow is all about context.

There is the snow that is falling outside my window as I write _ fat, downy, cartoon-worthy flakes against a black sky.

They are the type of flakes that my best friend _ a Wisconsin native who has lived in Florida since college _ must have been recalling when she sighed to me on the phone: Snow _ it’s just so quiet.

Spoken like someone who has survived a couple of hurricanes.

That snow _ that feathery whisper outside a little girl’s window as she stays up late to finish a chapter in "Little House" _ is a far different snow that the stuff melting and freezing in my rain gutter and making me remember with great anxiety something I read somewhere about ice dams.

My only wish is that I could remember exactly what it was I read.

My friend Jim called this spate of snowfall we’ve had so far this season a "practice." If that’s the case, I’m grateful for it. I can use all the practice I can get before experiencing the real thing.

We’ve been learning the finer points of shoveling snow _ an activity no one in the family had ever undertaken.

And I’ve learned that there are, at bare minimum, 20 or so different types of snow one can encounter while shoveling. [an error occurred while processing this directive]